Christmas shopping in the UK

[The Black Spot]

I bought some Christmas presents today. In the toy sections of the shops, there were a lot of Doctor Who related items (only to be expected) but I was amazed how many of them were Dalek related.

I'm old enough to remember the Dalek craze of my own childhood, and I never expected to see the day when I was buying Dalek toys for my own children.

Threee cheers for the Daleks-- murderous, pitiless monsters but still a great childrens' favourite after all these years!

[Griffin NoName]

I was terrified when I heard Daleks had learnt how to go up and down stairs.

I was going to start a present suggestion thread.

I need inspiration.

Gifts for males, late 20s:

A. for one who always asks for the receipt before opening

B. for one who hurls gift across room from disappointment.

Your starter for 10....... winner gets a Olde Rede Cowe Christmas pie.

[Sibling Chatty]

Do you have Slinky toys there?

http://tinyurl.com/wyg8f

Buy 'em a damn Slinky to play with. Don't waste money on a brass one, either.

(Dan and I both still like to play with Slinkys. There were the Jr. size on sale for a dollar today, and we both had to have one. Slinky races down the ironing board were the afternoons entertainment.)

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

I was terrified when I heard Daleks had learnt how to go up and down stairs.

I was going to start a present suggestion thread.

I need inspiration.

Gifts for males, late 20s:

A. for one who always asks for the receipt before opening

B. for one who hurls gift across room from disappointment.

Your starter for 10....... winner gets a Olde Rede Cowe Christmas pie.

Hmmm. The way _I_ was raised, is that you always smile and say a hearty "thank yew" regardless of the actual gift. ESPECIALLY if you were less that enthusiastic about it's contents-- and what kid DOESN'T really look forward to non-toy presents? <heh>

"Socks! Thank you! I REALLY need some of those!" 

Returns were simply not done-- if it didn't fit, you'd find a way to make it useful later.

Tossing across the room was right-out-- you'd likely get "tossed" somewhere ELSE, later. 

__________________________


So, my answer for BOTH A and B would be a GIFT CERTIFICATE.

(If one is SO inclined to be so ungrateful at the TIME someone else took to actually BUY/MAKE A PRESENT, then they do not deserve an ACTUAL present-- )

Actually, on second thought, if I THOUGHT FOR ONE MINUTE that EITHER A or B outcome were likely, I would give them a pet rock -- one what I picked up on the way to the gift-exchange out of the gutter.  ...   

[Aggie]

Oh, a pet rock's too hard for hurling.  Perhaps a bottle of something...  you'd have to be especially daft to toss a bottle of libations across the room (not commenting on whether that'd apply here). 

Actually, even better than a gift certificate would be some sort of a donation in his honour...  give him the tax receipt and see if he'll demand that they take the goat back from the impoverished family that it was given to.   

[Sibling Chatty]

Another idea...good driving gloves, a simple black leather, silk lined.

Anybody who wouldn't want those would have to be totally daft.

That or a very simple pair of very nice cotton pyjamas in a neutral color.

Find someone who knits or crochets to make them each a hat and scarf. Explain that with money so scarce, you'd traded computer expertise for the lovely handmade gifts, so no receipt, and it'll be soft when they throw it. (I can possibly get you a crochet person that'd do it for the hand exercize it gives her.)

I'd go with the goat donating. It's not as if they were indigent and depending on your gift to be a NEED, not a want.

OH, or how about a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?? (No comyf pillow on exchange, either!)

[goat starer]

Gifts for males, late 20s:

A 5m long solar ballon

http://www.eurocosm.com/Application/Products/Toys-that-fly/solar-airship-GB.asp

they are ace! I had a whole village come out to find out what this enormous black sausage hovering over their hamlet could be.

as a person prone to disappointment in presents this one failed to disappoint completely

[Aggie]

Oh, that looks like great fun!  I wonder if it'd work with a plain black garbage bag... I have some very flimsy ones that might do the trick.  Hmm...  there a 50 degree temperature difference between the air in my apartment and outside right now... I could probably launch a (short-lived) bag-balloon off the patio. 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Oh, that looks like great fun!  I wonder if it'd work with a plain black garbage bag... I have some very flimsy ones that might do the trick.  Hmm...  there a 50 degree temperature difference between the air in my apartment and outside right now... I could probably launch a (short-lived) bag-balloon off the patio. 

Back when I was a teen, we used to make Halloween "ghosts" out of trash bags, 2 balsa-wood sticks and several birthday cake candles.

Make an "X" out of the balsa sticks (you need very small ones, say 1/8" square or so) a drop of white glue and let dry a couple of hours works well enough.

Now, take the X and trim it so it just fits into the opening of the trash bag - the sticks should spread the bag open, but not stretch or tear it.

Take the X out, and taking 4 or 8 birthday candles, one at a time, melt (with a lighter or large candle) a bit of the bottom of each, and line them up on the X.  Don't put them too close together, or else their flames will feed on each other, and burn the candles out too quickly.  But, you want a balanced arrangement on each stick.

Now, have your friend hold the bag over the X, and carefully fit the lower edges around the X, careful not to dislodge any candles.  Use straight pins to secure the bag to the ends, or some masking tape.

Hold the whole thing by the bag's upper edges, and lifting it hight enough so you can duck underneath, and light all the candles. 

After a few minutes, the bag will fill with hot air, and it will float of it's own accord.

If you use brown or white bags, there's an eerie glow inside, and it looks really odd from a distance. For added effect, you can magic-marker a face or eyes or other designs.

Caution! Don't fly these on windy days, or if the leaves are dry---duhh!

The colder the air temperature, the better this works, just like real hot air balloons.

[beagle]

When I was a kid (I think this was still when it was town gas rather than natural gas) you could inflate ordinary rubber balloons with it. When I was alone at home I'd take the burner off the cooker, blow up a balloon a few times to weaken its resistance and then inflate it from the gas pipe.
You could tie it off, take it outside and it would float away at an altitude of about 30ft. Didn't always work, sometimes the gas pressure was too weak to inflate the balloon.

Not recommended though. Looking back I'm surprised the whole kitchen didn't blow up at some point, given that the fridge was also gas, with a pilot light.

[Aggie]

Dad used to demonstrate hydrogen generation (from NaOH + Al) into balloons, which float quite well, and explode dramatically if a candle on a broomstick is passed underneath.  I always wanted to try attaching a LONG waxed string, and light the far end before releasing it at night ...  instant mid-air fireball!   Never did get around to this.

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Bob, love the ghost idea...  I was just thinking that an alternate and less finicky burner could probably be made using the aluminum cup from a tea-light candle, a cotton ball, and some rubbing alcohol or other fuel (petroleum jelly?).

Mwah.... wanna play with fire now.

[Griffin NoName]

That reminds me of setting fire to the wrappers of Amoretti (small, round Italian biscuits wrapped in tissue paper) so they'd float in the air. They always seemed to burn out ok but I dont know that the parents would have been impressed.

Yeh, driving gloves, they got thrown down the stairs actually..... he was 17 and had just passed his test... I got a barage of wouldn't be seen dead in.... next day one of his best mates came round... guess what? yeh.

That solar balloon looks perfect. Forgot the Science Museum this year - I normally look there - thanks.

I have to say, it's only my gifts that produce the particular response and only in private - everyone else in the world thinks these two are total angels

It has sort of become a joke in recent years but I'm never quite sure unless I actually see them using/wearing/eating whatever.....

great ideas tho - I think someone already bought one of them a monkey or some other endangered animal somewhere far far away on the adopt-a- scheme thing.

[Sibling Chatty]

Them boys just need an ass-whuppin'.

If Dan gets to go to England on his trip next year, i'll have him drop by and re-adjust their attitudes...it worked wonders with my rotten brothers! (He's very persuasive.

[Griffin NoName]

Oh thanks DD, I think they'd both react well to some stranger from the US dropping round with attitude adjusters

Got an email today from the receipt required one, he wants a carving knife.

[Sibling Chatty]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alessi-SG505-Mami-Carving-Knife/dp/B000KGGBAW

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Henckels-Four-Star-Carving-Knife/dp/B00008S0SZ

Both nice, but much too good for him.

I'll get this one and ship it to you if they don't ship to the UK.

http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html?ie=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B0009NZ6GG

Cooking.com has a good article on how to select a good knife.

http://www.cooking.com/products/howtobuy/experts.asp?ClassNo=0502

[Griffin NoName]

Hey thanks but he's building up a set of Global knives. I dont like the handles but they are good knives. They are expensive so I am probably the only person who will buy them for him so it will probably take him for ever to get a full set.

I have an electric carving knife which I really like. Ken Livingstone has not put a carving charge on them yet so I can afford to run it the few times a year I have a roast. 

[Sibling Chatty]

Does he have the G series or the GF?

GF is the tops, and a beautiful carver (I used one 3 years ago at a city-wide Thanksgiving feast in Houston, where I got to carve turkey for 3 straight hours) but, damn, they're expensive!!

They're also much better for meat than for poultry, but I wasn't going to fuss. Sort of like having the Bentley of cutlery, you know.

The tilt of the handles on the G series is...annoying.

(The latent kitchen-stuff freak in me is coming out...I must make it go back before I get all domesticated again!)

[Aggie]

Mmmmm ....   Henkels Four-Star....

Gave Mom and Dad an 8" **** chef's knife quite a few Christmases ago (along with some cheaper Henckels to fill out the set) and it's the only knife they like to use.

My favorite is still my $16 Cologne Series 6 1/2 Henckels Chinese Cleaver....  I don't think they make 'em any more.  Nice thin blade, but lots of depth for chopping and crushing with the flat.  I even carried one of these (I think it was a Berlin series) while backpacking in Australia and Malaysia; hostel knives are rubbish.  I used to be quite good at paring veggies with it. 

[Bluenose]

I use a set of Victorinox wooden handled, full tang knives I was given as a wedding present about 7 years ago by a friend who runs a butchers' supply service.  They hold their edges very well and I am only now considering gettimg my oil-stones out.  However, I always use my steel every time I pick one of these knives up.  I simply cannot stand a knife that is not razor sharp, and I am quite happy to stop half way thorugh a job, give the knife a wipe and a quick touch up on the steel.  I am a firm believer that a steel cannot sharpen a blunt knife but it can keep a sharp one sharp.  This is certainly proving the case.

I often have a browse around the local knife shop and drool over all their lovely knives, but at the end of the day I am very happy with my Victorinox, so I don't see a need to change.

Sibling Bluenose

[Griffin NoName]

Does he have the G series or the GF?

Total panic. I just bought what I was told to - or did I? Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrgggghhh! 

EDIT S'ok. "G" series. If he'd asked for a GF he'd have inherited the means to buy it rather quicker !!!

[Sibling Chatty]

Ooooh, I love the Victorinox edges...

My favorite design knife is a Vic that's now 32 years old, and much narrower than it was, but that thing'll hold a good sharpening forever.

They're just a really good knife, any type, and always nicely balanced. I had a Vic fish-knife that was superb, and an old, old friend liked it so much, I gave it to him when he opened his own restaurant. Paul Prudhomme of K-Paul's in New Orleans...he was often on the same radio station as a guest on the show before ours, and we got to know him then. I was 'helping out' at the WWL booth at the Jazz Festival the day he introduced Blackened Redfish. His fish knife vanished, and I got The Late Mr. DD to go get mine so we could keep going and NOT use my design knife to cut the fish, and he liked it--so I gave it to him when K-Paul's opened. He was still using it as of last year.
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No Name,

I can see why you don't like the handles of his knives. They're just...too 'upswept' to be comfortable.

If it makes him happy and he does NOT throw it about, good.

[Griffin NoName]

The handles are too narrow for my liking too.

He may throw it about. He taught himself to juggle with knives when a kid, unicycling too at the same time. And fire. But it was the knives that scared me... even though he showed me how they were weighted. He was an accident prone child, spent half my life at casualty with him; the juggling episode was heart in mouth for me every time he went out to practice. I am so glad he is grown up ! Well sort of a technically grown up.